Hiring the Right People: Tom Ruwitch’s Formula for Success

Atiba de Souza: Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Build Your Team Show. As always, I am your host, Atiba and I have one of my newest friends and we spent some good time together. One, because we know a lot of people in common, but two, those people who we know in common put us together because we think so much alike and we're so connected on a lot of things.

And as always, build your team is brought to you by Client Attraction Pros. Hey, it's time that you become the thought leader of your industry, and we're gonna help you do that and make it fast, easy, and fun.

Atiba de Souza: So Tom Ruwitch, I'd love to introduce you. Welcome, welcome to the show, buddy.

Tom Ruwitch: I am happy to be here, Atiba.

Atiba de Souza: Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. So listen, Tom, I want to, as I do with a lot of people, I wanna take you back, right, because you've been in business for a while now, and I want to take you back to that point where you realized I can't do this alone. I need some help. I need to hire someone. Right. It's an inflection point for all of us who have teams who are in business to realize that, but then there's also all of this angst and anxiety that comes with it.

Right. What was that time like for you?

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah. Well, the first thing I would say is that it is "times", plural, because I've experienced it, I've learned, and then I make the same mistake and realized, wait a minute I should've gotten this right the first time. So, I'll go back to 2001 when I founded an email service provider company called MarketVolt. Marketing is software to create, deliver track email campaigns, and we were doing email marketing back at a time where very few people have heard of it, much less tried it.

And so when I started this company, it was me partnering with a software development company. So the tech, the development of the technology was pretty well covered because they had people, developers and project engineers and so forth, but I ran that company way too long without putting people around me who were assisting with marketing and sales, who were assisting with customer support.

I launched this company and launched the software wearing every single hat and part of the problem is that I like to get in and do things. I like to work in the business. I enjoy that, but I quickly realize the hard way that if I'm spending all my time working in the business I'm quoting Michael Gerber here in the E-Myth.

If you spend all your time working in the business, you never spend enough time working on the business. So the strategic planning, the growth of the business, the scaling of the business was suffering. And so I began to invest in all of those things I talked about, we hired sales reps, we hired a person who ran our customer support desk and began to grow that.

And as we scaled those things, I began to focus on the things that I was best suited to do. I was enjoying the work more, I was growing the business more, and on all fronts it was working out better.

Atiba de Souza: Yeah. Yeah. Funny how that happens, right?

Tom Ruwitch: Exactly.

Atiba de Souza: It's interesting because so many of us fall into that same trap of and you didn't use this word, so I'm gonna put a word in your mouth, wanting to control a lot, 

Tom Ruwitch: Yep.

Atiba de Souza: Right? And then you said you started hiring now, was it an epiphany bridge moment where it was just like one day you woke up and you realized, "whoa! Michael Gerber's right". And you went out and hired everyone, or did that take time?

Tom Ruwitch: I think it was more of an evolution. I had read Gerber long before I implemented the concept, and I'd heard these concepts long before I implemented. Part of it, you make excuses. You say, "well, I want to be the first person to put the process in place so that I make sure that the processes that I'm now going to delegate are, are good, are well designed and so forth". And I think the epiphany or the step off the cliff for me was to say, you know what? No I can hire people to create the systems as long as I set mission and vision and define the boundaries and make clear the charge for the people that I'm gonna bring in.

I'm gonna bring in good people who can do that for me. Now, there's a whole thing there about bringing in good people— 

Atiba de Souza: good people, yes. 

Tom Ruwitch: that's not a given. And I learned some hard lessons about how to hire the right people and you know, just because they charm me doesn't mean that they are well suited for the job and learned that the hard way also, during the course of this journey.

Atiba de Souza: Well, you should know we're gotta talk about that because the hiring of good people is kind of like that. That saying, in content marketing, just write good content , right? Like, okay, what does that actually mean? And how do we get to hiring good people? And I think for a lot of people it feels like, okay, I just gotta go through a bunch of people until I find a good apple.

Right. Has that been your experience or have you started to devise a formula of recognizing someone who's not just charming you, but is actually a good person?

Tom Ruwitch: Well, part of the formula is that for key hires I now will turn to experts who help in the process. So, when we began to build a sales team and had some false starts. We hired some people who didn't work out, and then we tried again and it was, as you described, well, roll through a few bad ones before we find the good one.

I then brought somebody in who was skilled in implementing assessments and, talking to me to understand the business and what I needed and what my vision was for the business so that the process of bringing the right person was aligning with that. And she asked me hard questions and she pushed me and she was the one who would say, yeah, that person you like so much who you would love to hire, that's the wrong person for the job. So,

Atiba de Souza: Yeah.

Tom Ruwitch: Relying on somebody else's expertise in this area was really an important step that I took. And it's analogous to everything we're talking about, right? I finally let go. I said, I'm not going to be the HR director and the CEO of this company. I'm gonna bring in somebody who has skills in HR and can help us find the right person. And in that case, it was an outside contractor, not a full-time employee.

Atiba de Souza: Okay. That was gonna be my next question was did you hire a firm, a contractor. Okay, great. So you've found someone, so now for a lot of people listening to us, that's gonna be a moment right there, right? Because it feels like, "oh my gosh, I need to do all this hiring. This is my company. You want me to let Joe, of who I'm bringing in". Right. Now, you said you've made the same mistake multiple times, which I understand being a serial entrepreneur, I totally understand that and, you know, hopefully we get to making the mistakes slower and slower each time and we get better each time with that. Right. But did you also, as you progress through businesses, find it necessary or bring in that outside HR person, and if so, how did you find them?

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah. And in my case running MarketVolt, which was a company with clients around the globe, but also a very focused. We were a regional company primarily, and so most of our clients were from, the Midwest of the United States, a lot of our clients were from St. Louis, Missouri, where I live and where we were headquartered.

And so I was very active as a networker and in the local business community, the entrepreneurial community. So in my case, I had met people who had these skills who were great at what they do. And I had invited a couple of people I knew who I thought could help me in this process, into conversations. And I also had a person with whom I was masterminding.

She was in a mastermind group with me. She knew all about this. She understood my business very well. And when we went to hire some sales reps at MarketVolt, she was ultimately the person that I tapped. Is that something that everybody is well positioned to do? Maybe not, but I am a believer that when you're looking for third party resources for whatever the issue and the problem may be that you're trying to solve, tapping your network first for direct referrals is always the first place that I'll start. 

Atiba de Souza: Yes. Yes. Let's dive in there too, because I think that's, you know, it's so easy, especially coming out of Covid where we got so insular and everyone stayed at home and you locked the door and you got behind a screen and you didn't see people and now even on Zoom, you still don't see people because so many people turn their cameras off.

Right. And it's so just like a telephone call on the computer now. Right. And you know, I was just at Social Media Marketing World last week and that was one of the big themes is, you know, we've lost networking,

Tom Ruwitch: Right,

Atiba de Souza: right? We've lost networking. So let's talk about that.

Let's talk about building cuz I agree with you. Right. Let's talk about building your network and how that looks in 2023 and beyond in this new world of Zoom and hybrid meetings and stuff, how you continued that.

Tom Ruwitch: Well, I used the word earlier referrals, so, I will always, when I make connections with someone whom I know, who I like, who I think brings value to me and I think can bring value to my broader community, I will be very active about asking them who do they know? Who else should I meet? This is how you and I met, Atiba.

We were introduced by a mutual friend whom we both like and trust and it's one of those— when Dean introduces me, I am going, I know I'm going to be meeting a good person, and you felt the same way and we hit it off. So, you know, I used to, and I still to some extent go to those online networking events.

They're all over the place and I've met some good people that way, but what I find is that what we now call networking on LinkedIn or elsewhere. Tends to be, what's the word for it? There's a whole lot of pleased to meet you. Let's get married going on, you know, pleased to meet you.

I'm gonna pitch you now. Let's get to it. And so, what I'll do is be very selective about the people I'm connecting with, those connection requests that come out of those networking events, and I've found that over time as I've been more selective that many of those events are proving to be pretty fruitless for me because, pretty much everybody I'm meeting is coming to them with a deficit mindset.

You know, what can you do for me? Not a go giving, let's discuss what I can do for you mindset. And the best relationship building that I do is to build on direct referrals and to make connections with people who understand the value of 360 degree relationships. I'm gonna bring you value. You're gonna bring me value. Let's talk about that.

Atiba de Souza: Yeah. And that's so, so very important. And you know, I'm sure you know, that question was a setup because, Yes, that's exactly how we met, right? And it's that mutuality of someone that we trust that put us together and you're so right. So much has become, especially because of Covid and this is my opinion it's become transactional relationships.

Tom Ruwitch: Yep.

Atiba de Souza: Right. And it's, you know, I'm desperate, I'm in need. You've got money. Please give it to me.

Tom Ruwitch: Exactly. Exactly. And yeah, go on. Sorry.

Atiba de Souza: And to make it even worse, it's even become a place of there was somebody I was having a conversation with just recently, and the moment in time that they realized that we weren't a fit, they just walked away.

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's amazing how many of those experiences I've had where people come at you hard and you say, well, I'm not that person. And before you could even get to the point of saying to them, but I am impressed by some of the things you have. And I may know some people to whom I could introduce you before you, you even get to that conversation.

Oh, you're not buying. Bye-bye. I'm walking such a stupid approach. And you used the phrase a moment ago, Atiba, people have needs, I come to you, I have needs and so forth. And I think one of the things that I've learned is that as you go into these environments where you're meeting people, you're networking with people, you really have to define what the need is.

If the need is simply I want somebody to sign up and raise their hand and be a customer, then you're going to have a lot of fruitless conversations because you're meeting a lot of people who are not ideal clients for you, but they might be ideal partners for you, or they might be ideal promoters for you. Somebody who might tell others about your list or your lead magnet or your book, or your event.

They might have a platform or access to a platform. Now I have to give credit to a guy named Phil Pelucha, who's a great marketer who talks about these four P's, I used all four of 'em, or we've used all four of 'em in the conversation. The people you meet may have potential as a purchaser, as a partner, as a promoter or as someone with access to a platform, a podcast, a stage, and you also, can be a giver around all four things. You may say, well, I don't have a platform. I'm not running an event. I don't have a podcast. But you may have been a guest at a podcast, or you may know somebody who runs an event, and so you can meet somebody who, no, I'm not gonna buy from.

I'm not gonna partner with you, but you know what? You would be great on John Doe's podcast. I know John Doe. John Doe has a great podcast. I'll introduce you. And so if you come to these conversations with that perspective, that it's not just, will you buy from me, please, and if not, the conversation's over or you know, this guy just wants to sell to me. There's no value in the conversation. Well, networking becomes a real frustrating slog. 

Come to it with that go giving mentality of, I have four potential peas that could be of value to this. You know, I may be a purchaser or no purchaser.

I may be a promoter or no promoters. I may be a partner or no partners. I may have a platform or know of platforms and then also decide what is it I'm looking for in this conversation. This person may not be a direct prospect purchaser, but maybe this person can introduce me to a podcast or promote my email or whatever.

Now all of a sudden, networking gets much more productive and much more interesting.

Atiba de Souza: Absolutely. So, so very well said. Love the four P's. 

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah.

Atiba de Souza: you know, I've always looked at that too as give value in advance, figure out how I can add value in advance before you ever ask for anything. Let's add some value to this other person's life, right? We got here because we were talking about building your team and finding that, in this case, the HR person for you, which came through networking.

Right? So let's now bring it right back around to that, to getting back to building your team and key hires, right? Because I think you're, as you've just said, you know, in building some of these relationships, and adding value and that's the key, adding value to someone else where you don't necessarily have the reason at that moment to ask for value back. Just adding value because it's the right thing, also puts you in a place where later on when you are looking for it, because hey, I now know that you've figured out part of the formula for hiring great HR people through your networking, you may have others. So if I know someone who's looking for that, I'm gonna say, Hey, talk to Tom.

He may be able to help you.

Tom Ruwitch: exactly.

Atiba de Souza: He may have an independent consultant, right? So outside of key hires has, have you used networking to help you hire the right people?

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah. And so I'm gonna fast forward to the last three years. At the end of 2019, I sold MarketVolt to a great company called Benchmark Email, and I founded Story Power Marketing, which is my current company and I had various relationships that I had built through MarketVolt that carried over into my work at Story Power.

I was building new relationships and the first hire that I made was a virtual assistant. Somebody who could just take all of the small activities and some of them big, you know, editing some of my videos and doing a lot of things. I needed to hire a virtual assistant and I knew that from past experience. I shouldn't be spending time on those things that I can hire a lower cost.

And in this case a very low cost person to handle for me and there are all sorts of websites out there where you can hire a virtual assistant, Upwork and onlinejobs.ph, and so on and so forth. And I knew that I didn't want to invest the time and the energy and the wheel spinning in using those sites, even though I understood, you know, how to separate good candidates from bad and so on and so forth. I went to my network and what happened is someone whom I knew well, who I understood was running his business well, whom I understood was using VAs to help him run his business. I reached out to him and he said, as it turns out, I have a VA who has completed a set of projects that are now finished.

I'm not able to give him as much work as I would like. He's looking for work. I'm going to introduce you. And that was a really critical moment in my business because I didn't have to go through the process of spending the time of vetting of especially when it's VAs, there's a process of give them test work and you have to be fair in that process where you're really defining the tasks clearly.

Or you're purposely not for the purpose of testing. You know, how communicative are they? There are all sorts of processes and tricks and things that I understood how to do, but in this case, a trusted partner in my network of people said, here's your guy. I'm going introduce you, and we hit the ground running and that was a huge thing. Now I also ended up hiring somebody who's doing a fair amount of work for me now. Some copywriting, some client support work and so forth. And I did find this guy on Upwork. So I've done both. My business right now is reasonably small and in terms of the number of people who are involved in the business, and those are probably the two examples of hiring that makes sense for me to share.

Atiba de Souza: So you've taken us into the world of virtual and hiring people from around the world, which is a topic I love to talk about. As you know, I've had the founder of OnlineJobs on this show, and we've talked about his platform and what he does and and why he's a great guy, why it's so special and everything.

Right. How is managing in the virtual world from people from around the world different than where you were with the staff that you were hiring? It may have been in person or even more local and to the US.

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah. And so the principles that apply, I think, apply, whether we're talking about a virtual assistant in the Philippines, or whether we're talking about somebody whom you've hired on Upwork, who in my case this guy is in LA or whether you're talking about my office manager and bookkeeper who's right here in St. Louis and used to work for me at MarketVolt in the office, down the hall. So the principles are the same and that is that, you know, starting in March 2020, I came home, I left the office environment. My office was shut down. I had no choice. I now sit at a home office, and so I'm not down the hall from anyone who works for me.

And that's changed so much, and whether it's talking to Alicia, who's just down the street, but not down the hall any longer or to Ryan in the Philippines or Brady in LA, you have to be crystal clear on expectations and communication channels. Here is how we are going to communicate and share task. Here are my expectations.

Here's the process. And really in the end, these are just core principles of delegation back to Gerber, actually, this distinction, something I learned from Michael Gerber. The difference between delegating and abdicating which I love the concept. You know, if you abdicate, you say, oh I'm no longer doing this.

I'm gone. If you delegate, you have a responsibility to define the setup processes to be clear in the communications, and that's been a learning process for me since March 2020. The positive thing is I've understood the principles that I'm going for, making sure I'm clear, making sure I'm consistent, making sure there's no ambiguity, and finding the right processes and systems and tools to do that, including asking input from those I'm working with.

What's working for you? What's not? What could we do to improve this process? Asking them to help define the system has been a really critical part of that.

Atiba de Souza: Yeah. No, I totally can get that. And it's one of the things that so many people I see miss is— Communication is two way.

Tom Ruwitch: Oh, yeah.

Atiba de Souza: And you know, they think I've figured it out. I've given and I'm gonna, here's my delegation. But you don't ever stop to understand how was that received and what was missing so I can do it better the next time. Right. So have you ever had an experience where you hired someone with the mind to delegate, it didn't work out, and you realize it's because even though you thought you were delegating, you actually were abdicating.

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah. I think in retrospect when I talk about the fact that we churned through some sales reps before we landed on the right ones, and with the help of the consultant I mentioned, that's half the story. Half the story is that we weren't hiring the right people until the consultant helped us.

The other half of the story is that I wasn't setting those people up for success because just as you said, I was doing more abdication than delegation. I had been wearing the hat of primary sales rep for this company and just sort of, I modeled the demo. I provided them the materials they needed, but I didn't really give them all of the tools and all of the training. 

Atiba de Souza: Everything. Yep. 

Tom Ruwitch: And all of the systems they needed. And two things happened, first, as they were spinning their wheels. I then would go in and micromanage and say, do it this way. Which— Well, there, that wasn't the first thing. The first thing is when it wasn't going well, I'd just hold them accountable for their numbers without them stepping forward and assisting.

When I stepped forward and assisted, it was more me from on high saying, do it this way, not allowing them to feel empowered and own the system, and only after it became a collaboration where we began to have conversations about, well, here's how you tell me you're doing it right now. Let's discuss what would work better for you so that it was true delegation, them owning the process. I forget the name of the guy who wrote the book, Work The System. Do you know that book? 

Atiba de Souza: I don't, 

Tom Ruwitch: I'll look it up before or you can get it to the show notes. Gimme one second. Work the system.

Work the system. Sam Carpenter.

Atiba de Souza: Sam Carpenter. Okay, got it. 

Tom Ruwitch: Workthesystem.com. It's a great book and it's a story of a business owner who was sleeping on the floor at the office because he was one of those do everything business owners and the business was failing and ultimately he learned how to put systems in place and how to delegate properly and his whole theme is that the CEO is there to set the mission and the direction and that all of the processes, that all of the systems that run the business should be created by the people who are responsible for implementing the systems and that the CEO's job should not be to say, here is the system. Run it. And that's a mistake that I made that, you know, maybe, that was even after I realized I had abdicated.

I made that mistake of saying, well, the way I'm gonna fix that is by handing them from on high a system. And then I realized that was a mistake, and only after they owned the system and they put it in place was I able to really see the kind of success that I wanted to see with my team.

 So the first several chapters, like first 75 pages of the book are sort of his dissent into misery. Where he talks about, you know, being the CEO who tried to run everything and sleeping there and after about 30 pages you sort of feel like, oh, okay, I, I get it.

I get it. Let's skip to the epiphany part. But once he gets to the epiphany part it's really helpful both strategically and tactically. And I don't think you're gonna read it and think, "wow! I hadn't thought of that". You know, it's not gonna have any grand epiphanies, you already get this. When I first read it, I bought copies for everybody on my team and I said, this is how we're going to approach this.

And I would often cite it because he talks about, for example, I had an employee who even after I properly delegated, would constantly come to me for permission. Tom, would it be all right if I do this or Tom what do you think I should do A or B? And I got into the habit of saying to him, what do you think?

What do you think you should do? A or B? And he'd look at, first, he'd look at me and I'd say, do you remember reading Carpenter? Yes. Okay. This is your decision and if something goes wrong, we can discuss what we learned from that. But this is your decision, this is your process. 

Atiba de Souza: Yeah. Yeah. And It's, again, going back to where we started initially, it, a lot of times it's about control.

Tom Ruwitch: Right.

Atiba de Souza: And not wanting to give up control.

Right. You know, I sent a message to someone on our team yesterday and I said okay, so what you did was wrong, but I am so appreciative of the fact that you did it, that you didn't sit on your hands, but instead you got up, you saw an issue that someone else was having,

Tom Ruwitch: right.

Atiba de Souza: And you said, let me go out and fix it in this way. And then just let Atiba know by happenstance that this is what I did. Now, what you did was incomplete, you didn't understand everything. But the fact that you did that,

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah.

Atiba de Souza: you took that ownership, right? And you said, let's systemize this process so that we can stop having miscommunication. Kudos to you for that,

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah. And I love that story because, a good system answers the questions that are going to be asked and anticipate those branches in the road and, we've all been the consumer at, let's say, the hotel desk where something's not going right, and the person at the desk says, "I'm sorry, sir. I can't help you", because there's no system to allow them to wiggle, and they don't know an answer and they don't feel as if they have the authority to act.

So the fact that you have a business where somebody felt comfortable and confident enough to act without having to call is important. And the fact that you handled it the way you handled it means the system is now evolving and getting stronger while they still feel ownership of it. 

Atiba de Souza: And empowered. Yes.

Tom Ruwitch: yeah, that's beautiful. That's what we're talking about. Yeah.

Atiba de Souza: that's exactly what we're talking about. Right? I'll tell you one, one quick story before we end. It just happened. So we went to, as you know, I'm not in my normal studio. I'm in San Diego and we went to Tijuana recently. And so we went to exchange money, right. To get pesos. Now I know once I cross the board, I've gotta catch a taxi.

Right. And I also know that the taxi drivers know that you just changed money. And so they try to price their fare in a way that it comes in the middle where you have to overpay them because they know the money that you got when you exchanged.

And so, knowing this going in, I'm like, okay, I'm exchanging the money. And I asked the lady, I said, you know, " hey, you gave me a bunch of twenties. Can I change these for some tens?" She says, "no, I can't do that". Right. And I'm thinking, but why? Then we get the receipt and on the receipt it told her exactly every denomination and how many to give me and she was not allowed to change that.

Right. And it's like a completely inflexible system, which I understand they're trying to make sure that it's money and it's safe and so on and so forth. But it's two tens for one 20,

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah.

Atiba de Souza: but she has no power and control. And so she never feels empowered at her job. She always feels like she's under a thumb,

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah.

Atiba de Souza: and when people feel like they're under a thumb, our businesses can't grow.

Tom Ruwitch: I completely agree. We could— there's a huge rabbit hole we could go down. We don't have time. We'll talk again some other time about this. You know, we're talking here about human beings making human decisions and too many businesses are so mechanized. Every decision is pre-programmed that those human interactions, "Hey, I need a little help here. Here's the reason", and there's no reason that they shouldn't be able to give you tens. The only reason is mechanizing the process for mechanization sake so that there's no possibility of mistakes or variation. Well, if you program your business so that there's no opportunity for mistakes and variations, yeah, maybe you avoid the situation that you just described, Atiba, where an empowered employee acted and made a mistake but your business is less human, less flexible, less connected to its clients, and in the end, as you said, it doesn't scale. So yeah, great story. Perfect story.

Atiba de Souza: no, thank you. It just can't. And so I hope for all of you listening to us that you're hearing that right. And you know, I talk a lot about systems. A lot about systems and the importance of systems, but the importance of the system is so that you can understand the outcome that you are trying to get to, right? The system helps you get to the outcome,

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah.

Atiba de Souza: Right? But the system doesn't mean that this is the only way to do it, and it doesn't mean that the system can't evolve in order to help you get to the outcome more efficiently.

Tom Ruwitch: Yep.

Atiba de Souza: Right?

Tom Ruwitch: So it. Yeah. Evolve. We've used that word a couple of times here. It's so critical and, yeah. And that is, you know, we, as human beings have evolved. The stories I've told about my business process, I've learned and evolved. Your system is evolving based on the experience you had yesterday with your employee.

That's what it's all about. If you put yourself in that box, here's the system. It's unchanged. No flexibility. You won't evolve.

Atiba de Souza: Yes.

Tom Ruwitch: And your business will be stuck. Yeah. I love it.

Atiba de Souza: Absolutely. Well, Tom, as you said a little while ago, we could go down a rabbit hole here, and unfortunately, we've reached the end of our time, so we're gonna have to come back another time and go down this rabbit hole together, right?

And really talk about on that topic. But right now, what I'd love for you to do, because we've talked about your two businesses, right?

But I want you to tell everybody where are you now? What are you doing now? Who do you serve? And, how do you serve them and how can they reach you?

Tom Ruwitch: Beautiful. Yeah. So I am the CEO and founder of Story Power Marketing. Coaches, authors, consultants, anyone who is trying to package their expertise for sale to serve clients, they hire me to power up their creative content and storytelling because most of them are still dishing out the same old, boring, blah, blah, blah content.

Especially true now that many of them are pushing buttons and having robots write it for them, and then prospects are tuning out and moving on, and those experts and authors and so forth are feeling frustrated and stuck. So I teach them how to transform their content from boring to brilliant. How to turn the marketing process from frustrating to fruitful and fun, and ultimately how to convert the bottom line.

My bottom line is that if you can create content, email, social, blog posts, videos and so forth, that is both informative and entertaining and story powered, you can be the one to stand out in this world where just the haystack of sameness is just growing exponentially. You don't have to be another needle in that haystack.

You can be the one who stands out and I teach my clients how to do that through a variety of means. The best place to start is simply to go to my website, storypowermarketing.com, sign up for my email list where I practice what I preach and demonstrate how this can be done with email, but there are other resources you can get on the website and you can connect with me directly by replying to the emails or by checking me out on LinkedIn.

Just look me up on LinkedIn and I guess, Atiba will put all that in the show notes. So, that's the way to, that's the way to find me.

Atiba de Souza: Absolutely. And as you said, thank you for that. Everything will be in the show notes. All of Tom's links. Definitely, check him out. Okay? The guy is good, like if you didn't hear it already, he's good at what he does and if you are in that place where you really need to tell your story better. Remember when we were just talking about networking and who you meet and so on and so forth. Guess what? By listening here, you just networked with Tom through me. You've just networked with Tom. Reach out to him. He'll help you tell your story. Tom, thank you, my friend. Thank you so much for being here.

Tom Ruwitch: Yeah, very happy to be here. This will be— this is not the first conversation I was about to say. This will be the first of many. This is the fourth or fifth of many and I'm so happy that Dean introduced us and so honored to be on your show. Thanks very much.

Atiba de Souza: Absolutely. Thanks for being here, buddy. All right, everybody. Bye-bye.